Usman Khawaja says ‘I haven’t thrown anyone under the bus’ after ball-tampering revelations

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Usman Khawaja has denied throwing anyone under the bus after making explosive claims about the infamous ‘Sandpaper-gate’ scandal in his new book.

Khawaja, who retired after last winter’s Ashes, wrote in extracts in his autobiography Sabr, which is set to be published on Tuesday, that the entire Australia team knew about the plot to use sandpaper to tamper with the ball during a Test match against South Africa in Cape Town 2018.

At the time only captain Steve Smith, deputy David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, who was caught on television cameras applying the sandpaper, took responsibility for the scheme. The former two received one-year bans while Bancroft was suspended for nine months.

Khawaja said that captain Steve Smith talked him out of insisting the entire team take responsibility and also alleged that a member of the coaching staff encouraged Bancroft.

Khawaja said in a two-part video statement on Instagram: “I haven’t thrown anyone under the bus. These three guys took the blame for all of us and they’re the victims. The truth has never come out.

“I stayed quiet yesterday but if you read my article you’d have seen, when I said it was all of us, that’s implying that whether we like it or not we are all responsible for what happened together. As a team, we need to take that collectively. Am I going to deny that everyone knew? No.

“But I never speak on behalf of anyone else in my book – contrary to what the headlines in clickbait media would have you think.

“The only other thing that I think is really relevant, which I want to talk about, is the question why now? Well, because I’ve been trying to take this as a team right from the start. You can believe my story or not.”

Khawaja added: “When the other guys got their penalties I told Smudge (Smith) that I was going to come clean to the media. I couldn’t believe the penalty he got, but Smudge being the man and leader he was talked me out of it.

“He wanted to take the blame. I argued with him, but he was having none of it.”

Khawaja said “all of us” knew about the plot and said that he had again wanted to come clean in 2021, before a statement was released by now-captain Pat Cummins and the rest of the bowling unit, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon in which they denied any involvement. “I wasn’t going to go to war with those guys,” Khawaja said.

As for why he had waited until now to finally speak out, he said: “Call me a chicken or whatever you want. I didn’t know how to do it because I was still in the team. I was always conscious of putting my team first, but I’m not in that team anymore. What I say now isn’t a reflection of them anymore.”

The book is also expected to allege that the same tactic was first used in the previous Test at Gqeberha.

Former Australia coach Darren Lehmann denied Khawaja’s claims of widespread knowledge of the plot, but acknowledged that ball-tampering was a “big part” of international cricket during the period.

Cumms, Starc and Hazlewood are not involved in this month’s white-ball series against England but stand-in captain Mitch Marsh is likely to face questioning on Khawaja’s claims.

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